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In the rolling hills of Tuscany, the Frescobaldi family has been making wine for 30 generations and some 700 years. Yet, it was only in 1995, when the family aligned with the Mondavi’s, America’s first wine family, that a cross-continental collaboration was born in Montalcino, an area within the Tuscan region famous for its Brunello, a 100% Sangiovese wine.

Luce della Vite, meaning “Light of the Vine,” is the resulting winery even as gyrations in the Mondavi family business have blunted the initial collaboration of the two families in jointly creating a world class winery. Now run exclusively by the Frescobaldi’s with investment from Michael Mondavi (and imported to the U.S. by Michael Mondavi’s Folio Wine Partners), their flagship wine, sourced from 29 DOCG certified acres, the 2006 Brunello di Montalcino, has been awarded a perfect 100-point score by James Suckling, former European Bureau Chief for Wine Spectator, now leading his own wine project at his eponymous web site.

This introduction would be apropos of nothing besides pretentious wine writer affectations were it not necessary to establish the backdrop for what is a compelling convergence of issues in the wine world.

Encapsulated in this one wine, from an Italian wine family, formerly aligned with the spiritual father of modern day American wine and imported to the U.S. by his son and given a perfect 100-point score by a former critic with the Wine Spectator, many of the contemporary issues of the wine world can be examined and pondered…

Consider:

A 100-point score

Is there such a thing as a perfect wine? I might suggest no, which is why my own scoring only goes to 99. In the realm of subjectivity, how can something like wine or art achieve perfection?

The fallibility of wine criticism

Stephen Tanzer, another respected wine critic, gave the same wine 92 points. Wine Enthusiast scored it 93 points. Robert Parker’s Italian wine critic (and recently anointed California reviewer), Antonio Galloni, gave it a 90. While a 90, 92 or 93 is a terrific score, the difference between a 90 and a 100 clearly points to a margin spread that provides more questions than answers about the wine.

Crossing the digital divide

Suckling, ex-Wine Spectator, left the paper magazine business and is now running his own web site with subscriptions, an organization that is less than a year old. He has lived in Tuscany for a number of years and knows Brunello wines well. However, anointing 100-point wines isn’t something critics do lightly. So, when he declares that, “The 2006 vintage for Brunello di Montalcino is the new benchmark…” is he genuinely reviewing the growing year and the region’s most notable vintner or is this his attempt at market-making relevance akin to Robert Parker Jr.’s declaration of ’82 Bordeaux as “superb” when others weren’t as confident.